Tag Archives: easy money

There is distortion and malinvestment throughout the world economy. It’s everywhere. From Japan to Europe to China to South America to the USA and beyond the economy is misfiring thanks to the massive monetary experiments of the world’s central banks of the past 6 years. (And even before that.)

Malinvestment is a very important concept to understand. It simply means the allocation of capital in ways which appear to be (and may be) rational in a period of artificially cheap credit, but in ways which in the end prove to be inefficient once the market corrects for artificially low rates. (Created by a central bank.) Malinvestment is a symptom and a driver of economic bubbles.

Sounds so radical doesn’t it? Isn’t the Federal Reserve there to smooth out the economy, to stabilize the currency? To make sure the world doesn’t blow up?

What if I told you that it doesn’t smooth out the business cycle, but exacerbates it. That the dollar has lost 95% of its value since the establishment of the Federal Reserve. And that the world has “blown up” multiple times under the Fed regime? The world is worse for having the Fed in it.

The first real percolation in the housing industry in the USA, post first bubble, was in Washington DC and New York City. Why? Because that is where the Federal Reserve spigots are. Newly printed money flowed through the system to government contractors and bankers first. Manhattan and DC real estate barely saw the recession, the crony capitalists did quite well over the last 5 years.

The political and banking classes both demand easy money right now. (They always want it.) Print more and more money and the world will continue on as it has (limping that is) for the past 5 years. This is the “new normal.” Sure it’s corrupt, sure it’s counterfeiting, sure it encourages unsound economic and political decisions, but hey we need to do what we need to do.

Recently I wrote a piece entitled Boycott Back Friday. Generally it was well received. Being fans of capitalism and the voluntary exchange of goods and services we made the point that it was entirely reasonable to opt out of the buying frenzy from a pro-market perspective. To value time (time is money) with one’s family and more than standing in line to buy things is the very essence of what a free market is all about.

3 key components to wealth which lasts generations are said to be gold, land, and art. The first 2 classes are somewhat obvious, but art is less so. Yet the rich over the centuries have always invested in paintings and sculpture.